Help for the Haunted(86)

“Friend?” My uncle all but spat the word. “I read his book. Read every one of his articles, too. A lot of what this guy has to say hardly seems like something a friend would write.”

Heekin shut his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them and began speaking again, his voice was calm, his words clear. “I don’t deny my mistakes, and all the things I’ve done that might have seemed unfair to this family. But I’d rather not do any more harm when it comes to Sylvie. That’s why I found my way inside here. I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

Howie kicked the articles, sending my mother and Penny and Albert Lynch, who I glimpsed among the photos too, spinning around the floor. “Of course she’s all right! She’s with her uncle!”

I could only imagine how skeptical Heekin felt about that comment, since I felt the same. Neither of us let on, though. Instead, Heekin gazed around the room, making a quick study of the place. “I’m okay,” I told him at last. “We’ll just be a little longer.”

“Okay, then. If you need me, I’ll be waiting outside.”

I expected Howie to make another jab, but he just watched Heekin step back into the hall. When we heard the metal door opening and closing, Howie told me he was sorry. “Can’t stand filthy reporters and scumbag detectives poking around my business. And that guy does not give up. There’s something about him I don’t like.”

“My mother was the best judge of character I knew, and she liked him. In the beginning anyway.”

“Yeah, well, your mother was human too. Like the rest of us, she could have been wrong. And I’m telling you, she was wrong about that guy.”

I sat on the cot again, doing my best not to look at those pictures on the floor. Even if what Howie said might have been true, I didn’t like him talking about my mother that way. I stared blankly at those milk crates as he walked to the desk and fished an envelope out of a drawer. “I want to show you something, Sylvie,” Howie said, sitting beside me on the cot, the thin mattress sinking in a way that brought our bodies closer. I felt his arm graze mine as he opened that envelope.

From inside, he pulled a few black-and-white photos, like those in my father’s desk, only with none of the blurry shafts of light or mysterious figures. The first picture was of the theater—not the ramshackle place it was now, but back when the building looked majestic, when that marquee stood upright just as I’d imagined. In the crowd out front, I saw women with dark lipstick, spidery eyelashes, and dresses so glittering they seemed to be made of hundreds of tiny flashbulbs. The men at their sides sported dapper suits and bowler hats. Howie let the picture speak for itself before handing me another of a man and woman dressed more simply. The man twisted the crank on a taffy machine; she held the finished product in the air, stretching it thumb to thumb, laughing. Something about them seemed familiar, and I felt a stirring in my chest.

“Are they—”

“Your grandparents, Sylvie. In the candy shop that was once part of the theater.”

We looked at them for a long moment. I studied their faces, hunting for glimpses of Rose in my grandfather’s strong chin, of myself in my grandmother’s wide eyes. In each, I saw my father, Howie too.

“I must be getting old,” my uncle told me, speaking more calmly, “because I’ve never been the nostalgic type until lately. But I’m finding it’s a strange thing to be the last one left in a family. You spend a lot of time thinking about the past, wondering why things turned out the way they did.”

His words led me to glance away from the photos and down at that messy carpet of newspaper clippings. My mother and Penny and all those headlines.

“You must be wondering why I kept those,” he said.

I nodded, then said, “Yes. I am.”

My uncle tucked the first two photos back into the envelope, holding on to the third facedown so I couldn’t see it just yet. “If there’s one place drunks love, Sylvie, it’s a public library. Nice and quiet when you’re nursing a hangover. You can sleep the day away without anyone bothering you except maybe some nag of a librarian. The Seventy-Eighth Street Community Branch in Tampa—that was my favorite whenever a rent check bounced and the landlady padlocked my door. In my more sober moments, I used to dig around there for stories about my brother. Even if I didn’t believe the things he claimed, I felt proud he’d made something of himself. Jealous, too, since he was keeping me from the dreams I had for the theater. Later, after what happened, collecting those papers became a kind of obsession—one I’ve kept up since I got here. Guess I’m still trying to make sense of it all. Thing is, all those articles list the same facts. I know how hard it must be, Sylvie, but you were there that night. Can you tell me what happened inside that church?”

Shhhh. . .

As he drew closer to that question, the sound in my ear grew steadily louder. Useless, I knew by now, but I pressed a finger to my ear anyway. The thought of Rummel and Louise filled my head. “I tried,” I said, offering an answer I did not plan, but one I might well have given them, because it was true, “always to be their good daughter, the one they could count on and be proud of. But when it mattered most, that night in the church, I failed. Not only couldn’t I save them, I can’t even identify their killer with any real certainty now that they’re gone.”